[mpalmer]

> the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities

As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.

They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.

Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing)

They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing. The thing doesn't have any legal basis; it was implemented only to create a dichotomy for discrimination.

[mpalmer]

> They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing.

That's not a thing. They can't require different things of different press organizations (arbitrary/capricious), or exclude orgs because of their speech (excluding the AP FOR calling it the Gulf of Mexico)

Courts may find that this specific requirement of signing the policy is lawful, or no. But if everyone has to sign it, it's not arbitrary.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> But if everyone has to sign it, it's not arbitrary.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. You are saying the request does not have arbitrary targets but I am saying the request itself is arbitrary. By this meaning, it would not be an arbitrary request to ask all of the reporters for their eye color but it would be arbitrary to deny access to green-eyed people.

> exclude orgs because of their speech

This is what they're planning to do to the organizations which choose not to sign it. Signing it (or not) is an act of expression. Choosing not to sign it would not be violating any law; there is no reason for them to be excluded. Perhaps there's a legal definition of "arbitrary" that I'm naive to but, by a plain English understanding, it's obviously arbitrary to deny access to the groups that didn't sign it based on their decision not to sign it, unless the requirement itself is not arbitrary.

[mpalmer]

> Signing it (or not) is an act of expression

And I myself am not a lawyer in the slightest, but this specific claim feels pretty iffy from a 1A standpoint.

The government is not prohibited from setting rules for access to their facilities. If they apply rules unevenly, that is the sense of arbitrary that applies here. Arbitrary administration of rules, not arbitrary in the sense that someone finds the rule itself to be arbitrary.

When rules are arbitrarily administered in a situation when constitutional rights are at issue, that is where the rubber the meets the road in a constitutional law sense. This goes (I believe) to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.

If the courts allowed the government to deny a press org access (and thus suppress their speech) according to some obscure rule, while other press orgs that are technically violating the same rule continue to enjoy access, that creates an environment where the government has carte blanche to violate constitutional rights by creating subtle inequity in their admin of the rules.

That they can make said rules is well-established - IF the rule itself is constitutional. That is a separate legal concern from the uneven admin scenario.

What I'm saying up above is: this isn't uneven admin, less likely there are grounds for a 1A claim. Whether this signature requirement passes muster is entirely different, and I'm less informed on that part of the law. I certainly don't like it, though.